Mark Coetzee, the Executive Director and Chief Curator of the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa (Zeitz MOCAA), has resigned from his position, effective immediately, the Trustees of Zeitz MOCAA confirmed today.
The Trustees stated that ‘an inquiry into Mr Coetzee’s professional conduct has been initiated.’
Zeitz MOCAA, which opened its doors in September last year to be touted the ‘Tate Modern of Africa’, has had surprisingly few critics. This despite what has appeared to some as questionable institutional and curatorial practices.
Coetzee has recently failed to respond to questions about the institutional practices at Zeitz MOCAA. Instead he simply replied to an email stating that the questions sent to him ‘seemed quite far removed from the reality of how the museum functions.’
There have been unconfirmed rumours for some months that abuses of power were taking place, the nature of which are not known. Although several people at the museum and Waterfront have been asked for comment none has been forthcoming.
The Trustees of Zeitz MOCAA has announced that they ‘have asked Azu Nwagbogu to assume the role of Director and Chief Curator.’Azu is currently a curator at large with the museum.
An attempt was made to contact Coetzee for comment on both his institutional and well as his private email. However, at the time of publication no reply had been received.
Updated (17/05/2018): An earlier version of this article attributed the above statements to the V&A Waterfront rather than the Trustees of Zeitz MOCAA.
